Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1891 — RECKLESS RAILROADING. [ARTICLE]

RECKLESS RAILROADING.

Western Examples of “Get There” Experiences. “Americans,” said an old traveler to a Philadelphia Press reporter, “are inclined to smile at Jules Verne’s story in “Around the World in Eighty Days’ of the transcontinental train that was run across the shaking bridge at lightning spe?d out West, and, as the story goes, the bridge fell in the chasm with a crash just as the train cleared it. These people declare that it is a fling at American carelessness. As a matter of fact there are just as foolhardy things done frequently on western railroads and nothing is evepthought of jfc ‘ 1 had an experience several years ago that I think parallels that of Phileas Fogg and of Passepartout. There are two lines of railroad running between Denver and Leadville. They are the Denver & Rio Grande and the Denver & South Park. They are both gingle tracked and narrow gauge. They follow different routes fio a point about "twelve miles below Leadville, in the Arkansas valley, from which point they use a singly track into Leadville. I don’t know how it is now, but in those days each company run one train each way daily. The train that left Denver in the evening over the South Park was due in Leadville early the next morning; but before it reached the mining city it was obliged to wait on a siding in the valley until the down train on the Rio Grande passed. The city of Leadville is perched on a plateau several hundred feet above the valley and the railroad winds down this slope. .A person standing out in the 1 valley can see the train winding down the hill, and it comes down with a reckless rush, but the siding is placed under the brow of a small hill that shuts off a view of the winding road to the city. “It was a frosty morning in summer when we reached this siding. Every one’s appetite was whetted to razor sharpness by the crisp mountain air, and every one was impatient to get on. But the Rio Grande was delayed. The men got put and stumped up and down and swore.. Some one suggested that they walk up to the point where they could see the hill and ascertain whether the train* was coming, but the Conductor warned them to stay by the train, as they would pull out th_e instant the Rio Grande passed. The point from which the hill would be visible was about 200 yards ahead of our engine. After waiting several minutes longer the conductor yelled to the engineer: “Jim, pull up and see if the blanked thing is coming.” Every one scrambled on board. I was no tenderfoot, and probably for that reason I stood on the lower steps of the platform ready to jump. We pulled up to the point from which the winding track was visible, and just as we reached it there was a cry of horror and a shout i 6lT ff My God! comes!* r Sure enough the down train was almost on tonjofus and coming at lightning Speed. Our engineer reversedhis lever quicker than he ever did before,, and in an instant we were shooting back to our siding. We reached it and the switch was barely closed as the Rio Grande went thundering down. “All right, Jim!” ■yelled the conductor, and as a whitefaced tenderfoot who had jumped clear over my head when a collision seemed inevitable climbed on board he turned to him and sneered: “Folks with white livers ought to stay east of the Missouri. ” The laws of China recognize seven causes for divoree. They are: Lasciviousness, jealousy, barreness, theft, disobedience, leprosy and talkativeness. The laws are for the protection of men; the women do not seem to be considered worth legal protection; a man is liable to punishment if he retains a wife who has been guilty of adultery. An eloping wife may be sold by the husband, and if she marries while absent from his house, she must suffer death by strangling. The legal power granted to men over their wives is pften tyr-. anically used and many instances are on record of the lowest kind of brutality being practiced. Polygamy is everywhere, and when A rich man has chosen his first wife with feet small enough to please him, he takes from two to five more whose feet may be of more useful size, but they must all be subject to the command and Control of the small footed one, the reason appearing to be that superior birth and breeding are thus marked. It is hard to believe but it is nom, the less true that men are asked'to work by millionaire dry goods men for $6 a week from 7:30 in the morning until 6in the evening. Yet such is the fact, and many so circumstanced and with families endure a constant struggle to keep the wdlf from the door on this miserablejpit tance.